Bread went from being a major part of our ancestors' food intake to being a very small part of the food we eat today.

Heavy, rich, and nutritious bread was once a daily staple; today commercial "industrialized" bread is produced in automated factories and is full of chemical additives and preservatives, too much salt, and has too little nutritive value.

This week we take a look at the history of the bread industry, take a peek at a short story written in 1958 called Bread Overhead, and compare and contrast three local bread bakeries. They range from "The Big Guys" to "Small is Beautiful."

I am NOT the primary cook in our household, but I do bake regularly. I have had my failures - some pretty spectacular. To the left is my example of "cow pie bread" - looks pretty much exactly like it should be out in the pasture!

My favorite thing to make is bread and after a lifetime I have finally learned how to make the most amazing - and flavorful - bread.

Because none of the women in my family (mother, grandmothers, aunts) were wildly successful in the kitchen, I started off a little behind the mark. But then, I know how to learn things from books! Add a video tutorial or two and I can do it!

We also have pieces by three of our regular contributors: Ina Denburg, Lea McEvilly, and Nicholas Parkinson.

There's more, keep reading! Get a cup of coffee and join us at GoodFood World, where we get to the source by talking to the people who produce, process, and deliver good food. Take care, eat well, and be well!

Our Daily Bread

Humanity has been making and eating bread - at first unleavened and then later leavened with a variety of yeasts - for thousands of years. It was about 10,000 years ago that man began to domesticate the cereal grains that would become bread.

The earliest known ancestral wheat species - einkorn and emmer (also known as "farro") - grew naturally all over the eastern Mediterranean area. They were "hulled" grains with a tight husk around each seed that had to be removed by parching or thrashing the grain. Modern bread wheat with "naked" grains or those that separated easily from the husk was an early cross that appeared around 9,000 years ago.

Today's bread wheat has been one of the successes of selective breeding resulting in high grain yield, disease and insect resistance, and salt, heat, and drought tolerance - but not necessarily good taste. Read When Did Our Daily Bread Take a Wrong Turn?

Then take a closer look at and a "virtual tour" of Essential Baking here in Seattle. They aren't the "Big Guys" nor the "Small is Beautiful" bakery; they're "Seattle's Biggest Small Bakery."

Listen to Your Veggies!

Ina Denburg, our healthy living correspondent, has had a love affair with Ratatouille, and she is ready to tell you about it:

I eat, therefore I cook.

I've been cooking for decades, enjoyably and with ease. But little did I suspect that I was in for such a revelation when I began to make Ratatouille - the traditional way.

Via this slow cooking method I was lured to relate with my food. I was truly present for the alchemy. I don't think you can prepare something this slowly and attentively and NOT want everyone to eat it slowly to savor it.

Our Minnesota shepherdess, Lea McEvilly, is back at the keyboard catching us up. This week she is taking bee keeping classes. Here is what she has to say:

Garbed in white pants and shirt, helmet and veil, wearing long gauntlet gloves and wielding a "smoker" to calm the bees, I began opening hives and discovering the wonders within. It was fascinating to me and I was hooked in no time at all.

Not much time passed before I could walk into a trefoil pasture in bloom and find it abuzz with honey bees gathering pollen and nectar, and thereby pollinating the blossoms so they would produce seed. A most wonderful process, I became a confirmed bee keeper for the next dozen or so years.

Our "overseas" columnist, Nicholas Parkinson, writes about how the Gohe Group Garden distributed over 40,000 seedlings for free to promote home gardens and win the hearts and minds of the community.

The city of Gohe partnered with USAID Urban Gardens Program in late 2010 to establish a group garden for 106 people, all HIV positive. Under a large tree in the middle of the terraced garden they planted a small nursery to prepare for the first harvest.

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See you next week!

Gail Nickel-Kailing and Ken Kailing

Co-Publishers/Editors

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